If a murder is committed in the city, its suburbs or on its river,
"englishry" cannot be claimed because the king's charter has exempted the
city from "murdrum".

[The royal charter of 1194, in a single clause, exempted the
citizens from murdrum and trial by combat. The Norman Conquest had
introduced into England new judicial procedures different from, if not
at odds with, Anglo-Saxon customs; trial by combat was one such, and not
appropriate to non-militarized borough society  towns preferred to
resolve cases through the taking of oaths.
Similarly, murdrum was a Norman introduction prompted by reprisal killings
of Normans by English in the years following the Conquest; this law
required that if the killer could not be identified, the
hundred in which the corpse was found
had to pay a substantial murder-fine. Hundreds sought to evade the fine
by proving "englishry", i.e. that the murdered person was English, not
Norman. By the close of the twelfth century, Normans and English were
intermarrying and a once bicultural society
was beginning to find it hard to demonstrate "englishry" and murdrum was
becoming increasingly applied to any unsolved homicide (whether murder
or accidental death). Consequently, this was one of the onerous burdens
of which boroughs might seek to rid themselves via their charters of
liberties. Not until 1340 were englishry and murdrum abolished throughout
the country.]